For people with a criminal record, this prejudice is felt most keenly when applying for jobs

More than one in four people reading this article will have a criminal record. If you include people with cautions, reprimands and final warnings on their record then the numbers are even higher. The majority of these ex-offenders are not hardened villains - on the whole, they are normal citizens who have discovered that even if their only crime happened decades ago, a record of it might still be following them around.

While it seems like a surprising statistic, it is perhaps more amazing that our attitude towards people with criminal records is so negative, even though we probably all know several ex-offenders. For people with a criminal record, this prejudice is felt most keenly when applying for jobs.

Aside from negotiating those application-form questions about your criminal record, if the job you're applying for involves extended contact with children and vulnerable adults, your would-be employer will perform a criminal background check. The Criminal Records Bureau (CRB), the agency that performs these searches, is increasingly busy. In March 2002, the CRB performed 1.4m checks - now it is on target to vet 2.8m applications per year and with new legislation, these numbers are set to grow further.

But while the system does mean that children and vulnerable adults are offered greater protection, it's also easy to understand the concern of Nacro, a crime-reduction charity, that the system is failing the 14,000 people who call their helpline every year to discuss problems with disclosure.

Nacro's communication manager Mervyn Barrett has taken hundreds of these calls from people. "One of the greatest problems is that the disclosure service is routinely abused by employers. A lot of jobs are being subjected to standard and enhanced disclosure checks for jobs where they have no right to seek that information. There is a growing tendency for employers to run a check on any job that involves even potential contact with children or vulnerable adults. The other issue is that we've got positions that may be eligible for a standard check but an enhanced level check is being carried out instead."

This final point is borne out by the CRB's own statistics - around 89% of disclosures have been done at the enhanced level. Unlike a standard disclosure where convictions, cautions, final warnings and reprimands are reported, an enhanced check also returns "soft information", which might include additional notes from local police forces including allegations that never led to a conviction.

On one level the inclusion of this information can be essential - its omission in the background check run on Ian Huntley might have been a factor in allowing him to work close to children. But on another, this soft information can have a devastating affect on the employment prospects of people, for whom the concept of "innocent until proven guilty" has been disregarded.

Last year Terry applied for a job in the hospitality industry. His position should not have been subject to a disclosure check, as it did not require regular contact with children or vulnerable adults - but his employer sought an enhanced level check. Terry didn't object because he had never been in trouble with the police. When the disclosure was returned he was shocked to see details of an allegation that he had hit his partner - Terry denies that this ever happened. Although the allegation was never fully investigated or ever came to court, Terry's employer refused an offer of employment.

Nacro points out that currently there's very little that you can do to purge this sort of information from your records and, although you can dispute information on your disclosure, Barrett says the police are often unwilling to re-investigate allegations from so long in the past.

This reluctance can be damaging: 20% of employers subsequently refuse to recruit someone as a result of a disclosure and it seems that rather than weeding out potentially dangerous candidates, the disclosure system is being used by some employers to filter out anyone with a prior criminal record. What makes the matter worse is that there is very little recourse for people who have been discriminated against.

"There is a Disclosure Code Of Practice which sets out individuals' rights and employers' responsibilities," Barrett explains. "It's designed to ensure that people aren't discriminated against but it is routinely ignored. In fact most of the time employers are not even aware that they've signed up to it. The other thing is that employers are routinely refusing to employ, or are dismissing people, on the basis of old or irrelevant cautions or convictions. If you're refused employment on the basis of a criminal background, then you're stuck.

"Alternatively, if you're already in post and your employer runs a disclosure check then you don't have the right to claim unfair dismissal until you've been in post for a year. The reality is that employers can get away with this sort of thing."

Such is the culture of discrimination that it has led to a situation where self-exclusion is the norm - people with criminal records realise that it's pointless even applying for jobs which require disclosure. Of the 2.8m standard and enhanced disclosures issued, only 6% of them showed any criminal record, far below the 25% you would expect to reflect society as a whole.

Despite this self-exclusion, Barrett says it's a myth that this will cause people to re-offend. "Those people are embarrassed and ashamed of what they did in the past but the fact that they're excluding themselves doesn't mean that they're going to go off the rails again. All that will happen is that they will lead diminished lives."

Incredibly, despite the Data Protection Act giving you some access to your criminal record, you cannot access the soft information which would be returned if an employer performed an enhanced disclosure. The closest you can get is to perform a subject access check. Each of the 43 police forces in England and Wales has its own subject access form, which you must fill in and pay £10 to submit. The process often takes the full 40 days allowable under the Data Protection Act and will list only the basic information.

If you are worried about disclosing a criminal record, the best policy is to be open and honest with employers from the beginning. "There are two things that you can do in this situation," says Barrett. "Don't lose sight of the fact that you need to sell yourself and get the job.

"Also, disclose the information before the CRB information comes back in a way that will be reassuring to an employer. In most instances, there is a lot that a person can say about a conviction or a caution that would entirely reassure an employer and explain the situation."

You might imagine that Nacro would be against the increasing use of criminal background checks, but Barrett has a surprising take on the move towards a universal criminal background check which would see full disclosure for every job.

"It might actually be healthy for two reasons. First, because individuals with criminal records might just have to get on with it and accept that's the way things are. Second, it might also be a good thing in that employers will see just how common it is to have a criminal record. If one in four of your applicants has some form of criminal record you are going to have to take a more balanced view of the issue."

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About this article

Disclosing a criminal record on a job application

This article was published on
the Guardian website
at 06.28 EST on Monday 27 November 2006.
It was last modified at 11.34 EDT on Friday 29 May 2009.
It was first published at 06.28 EDT on Wednesday 15 April 2009.